Thursday, August 25, 2011

Please, oh PLEASE, can I have a time out???

Jackson loves to pick on his big brother. He pinches, hits, whatever he can think of to get a reaction from him. I find myself saying over and over "Jackson - don't hit your brother", or "Jackson - don't pinch your brother". He doesn't do it to be mean. It's usually when Adam is involved in something and Jackson wants his attention. The only thing he gets from it is Adam yelling "OW" and then returning to whatever had his attention in the first place. So he does it again, and again, and again - well, you get the picture...

I've decided to try time outs for Jackson whenever he starts doing this. I'm not so sure it's working though. This morning, Jackson was pinching Adam. After asking him to stop, I asked him if he needed to go to time out. Jackson's response... "Ya" and he sauntered over to the stairs, which is our time out spot. He had a big grin on his face and just sat there. (He wasn't happy I tried to take a picture, which is why he isn't grinning here...)

I left to set the timer for his timeout, and Jackson suddenly started wailing - not really crying, but a nice fake cry. I guess he figures if you're in time out you have to cry... He sat there for two minutes, keeping up the wailing the entire time, and once the timer went off, he jumped up, walked over to Adam, gave him a hug and said sorry and then turned around and walked away. I guess he knows the time out routine!!

(I do get my children dressed in the mornings - he's in just a diaper because we had just finished pouring the water out of the pool in the backyard and he had soaked his pajamas.)﻿